Touhou Yukuefumeisha
by Mattecat
Summary: With Reimu missing and the Hakurei Barrier failing, Yukari, Marisa and Genji must search for somebody with Hakurei blood to sit at the shrine until they can find her, but their temporary replacement isn't quite human. Meanwhile, Utsuho has decided that she wants to be an incident resolver, and when she goes to the shrine and doesn't find Reimu, she takes on the quest of finding her
1. Search for the Shrine Maiden!

It was a fine, sunny spring day in Gensokyo, and Marisa was spending it in bed snoring.

Not that anyone could blame her. She had spent the most part of the previous night helping to resolve an incident — though in Marisa's opinion, it was really to an actual incident as a hill was to a mountain. Cirno and her gang of youkai friends had tried to stir something up, and had caused quite a headache for her and Reimu, but the real problem was the much stronger youkai they had managed to annoy. It had then decided to go on a rampage, coming dangerously close to damaging the Hakurei shrine and, more importantly, Marisa's house, and had been a ginormous pain in the ass to put down.

All in all, though, it had been a relatively tame incident, all things considered, and after she and Reimu parted ways Marisa had been looking forward to sleeping in the next day.

Her plan had gone uninterrupted up until noon, when there was a knock at her door. Marisa, being asleep, did not hear it and kept right on snoring. The knock repeated with more force, but still she slept on, and presumably the being behind the knocking got fed up and entered anyway.

"Sleeping," the figure said, having seemingly appeared out of nowhere right beside Marisa's bed. If you knew her, you would notice that her blond hair was in a state of disarray, and the bows on her puffy pink dress were lopsided and partially undone. "I suppose I have no right to talk, all things considered, but it's really only right to at least check up on your friend, correct? I've been running around all morning _looking_ – get up!"

With that, Yukari Yakumo opened a gap beneath Marisa and dumped her out of bed and onto the floor.

"Ayaaaaah!" Marisa was awake and on her feet in an instant, only to fall over in the next. "Eh?! Who's there?! What's – "

"Reimu has gone missing," Yukari said. "After you two finished resolving the incident, she never returned back to the shrine. You were with her the entire time, so it's your responsibility to help me find her."

"Whaaat?" Marisa stood up and rubbed her eyes. "Wait a second, I'm too tired for this. You're saying that after she told me, 'Bye, I'm going home," she didn't go home?"

Yukari frowned. "It… appears that is exactly what I'm saying. At least, she wasn't at the shrine last night, and she isn't there now, so I assumed…"

Marisa yawned and stretched. "Looks like she got a little lost on the way back! I'm sure she'll turn up, wake me up in a few more hours."

Before she could flop back down on the bed and resume her snoring, Yukari grabbed her arm. "Marisa, Reimu doesn't just get lost."

"Not when I ask her to, she doesn't!"

"This is serious. What if some youkai got ahold of her?"

Marisa laughed at that. "A youkai? Getting Reimu? I don't think so! Come on, I know you like the girl, but Reimu can take care of herself!"

"The Hakurei Barrier is failing," Yukari said. Marisa shut up.

Not for very long, though. "You should have said that from the start! What's going on? What happened to it? It was fine yesterday!"

"Well, it's not fine now!" Yukari snapped. "The Hakurei Barrier only works if somebody of Hakurei descent is at the shrine, which is why the shrine is so important, which is why Reimu is important, but usually it doesn't fail for months after a shrine maiden leaves, so something is very, very wrong and gods help me, you are coming to the shrine with me to talk to Genji."

Marisa's eyes widened. "You mean turtle dude? Man, I haven't seen turtle dude since... since Reimu was flying on him. That was ages ago! What do we need him for?"

"He's the guardian of the Hakurei family, and he'll be able to tell when there's someone with Hakurei blood in them. Either he'll be able to find Reimu, or he'll be able to find someone to stick at the shrine until we really do find Reimu."

"Someone to stick at the shrine? What are you talking about? Are we going to replace her now?"

Yukari rolled her eyes. "Didn't I just explain this? We aren't going to replace Reimu, but the Hakurei Barrier is failing _now_. We need somebody with Hakurei blood at the shrine in the next two days, at most, and though I'd like it to be Reimu, the sooner we find somebody, the better. I know for a fact that at least one of Reimu's grandfathers was a bit promiscuous, so hopefully she should have a second or third cousin running around somewhere. I don't think the shrine will accept anyone more distant than that."

One look at Marisa's face and Yukari knew she had lost her. "Wait," Marisa said, "where does turtle dude fit into this again? And why do I have to come with you?"

"I told you, you were with her last. Just get your clothes on and come with me."

* * *

"So turtle dude can sense Hakurei blood?" Marisa said when they were flying to the shrine. "Why can't we just ask him, 'Hey, where's Reimu?'"

"Because," Yukari said, "he is not a tracking device; he's only able to sense it within a certain range. And that range does not include all of Gensokyo."

"Well dang, it was worth a shot, though. So we're going to get turtle dude, and then..."

"We are going to fly all over the place with Genji and see if he can find her."

Marisa snorted. "That's one of the worst ways to find somebody I've ever heard of."

"Do you have any better ideas?"

"Of course! If Reimu's missing, that either means she's decided to stay out too long, or she's been kidnapped. And if she's been kidnapped, then we need to start looking for likely suspects." Marisa took a hand off her broom and pointed. "Like her!"

"Like who?" But Marisa was already steering her broom down into the trees below before Yukari could get an answer. "Marisa!"

Yukari groaned and followed her down.

She landed in a small clearing where Marisa and two others were standing; one was a black cat youkai, with a green dress and red hair done up into pigtails, who Yukari dimly remembered as being one of the youkai Reimu had fought while in the underground, while the other was someone Yukari recognized instantly.

"...did not kidnap anyone, certainly not Reimu, and no, we don't have the time for any danmaku duels." The person speaking to Marisa was Satori, the Mistress of the Palace of the Earth Spirits. It was rare – exceedingly rare – for her to be above ground, which almost definitely meant that something was wrong.

Yukari's suspicions were confirmed when Satori said, "You don't know anything about Utsuho, so we'll continue searching elsewhere. 'I'll just follow them and see what they're up to,' you're thinking. Please don't."

"What's this about Utsuho?" Yukari asked.

Satori turned to her and without missing a beat, said, "You and Marisa are searching for Reimu Hakurei and the Hakurei Barrier is failing. From your mind, it seems to be a much more dire situation than Marisa thinks it is."

"Yes," she said. "It is dire. If you'll pardon me, I can't read minds like you do, so you'll have to tell me. What happened to Utsuho?"

"Okuu left!" the cat youkai blurted out. Yukari was confused for a moment before remembering that 'Okuu' was the nickname given to Utsuho by her friends. "Just shut down the reactor nice 'n tidy, left a note saying she was going to the surface to be an incident resolver, and now we can't find her!"

Marisa laughed. "Okuu the incident resolver, eh? Well, with danmaku the size of your head, I can't say she won't be good at it!"

"Please do not say that to her face," Satori said. "You'll only encourage her. Orin and I are trying to find her before she manages to do any damage to Gensokyo. We thought she might visit the Hakurei Shrine first, but if Reimu's missing, going there won't help us."

"Hey," Marisa said, "you think she has anything to do with Reimu running off? Maybe she saw Utsuho coming and thought, 'Man, I'm going to hide in the mountains until this incident is over.' I know that's what I would do!"

"Of course not!" Orin said. "She just wants to be like you 'n Reimu! She'd never do anything to hurt anyone! Well, I mean, not on purpose. And she might if they break into our home."

"Hey, that was once, and it was Kanako's fault, anyway!"

Yukari pursed her lips. If there was a hell raven with the power of nuclear fusion running about... well, being away from the reactor would lessen her power slightly, but she'd still be able to do some real damage if left unchecked. As innocent as wanting to be an incident resolver might be, Utsuho had no control over her powers. If she started going around trying to shoot things...

"We need to find Reimu," she said. "Satori, I'm sorry we can't be of more help, but making sure the Hakurei Barrier stays up is our top priority right now. We'll keep an eye out for Utsuho."

"Thank you," Satori said. "Likewise, we'll watch for Reimu."

Orin waved at them. "See ya!"

Satori nodded and she and Orin walked away, Orin slipping into her two-tailed cat form as she did. Yukari glanced at Marisa, but she was already getting back on her broom.

"Hey, what if Okuu's behind the barrier failing?" Marisa said once they were back in the air. "I mean, they said she went to the shrine first. Or they thought she did, anyway. Maybe she accidentally blew up something important."

"I would have noticed when I went there this morning," Yukari said tiredly. "Besides, you can't harm the barrier with brute force."

"Everything breaks once you throw enough danmaku at it, trust me on this."

Yukari sighed and wondered if she should have just left Marisa to sleep the day away.


	2. Hell-raven Aboveground

Utsuho was in trouble.

All she had wanted to do was go to the Hakurei Shrine and ask Reimu about being an incident resolver. She had been there once before, soon after she had received her powers, but only because Satori let her. This time, she had gone without Satori's permission, and without even telling Orin.

Well, she left a note. That should be enough. Hopefully they would be satisfied with that.

This was not the trouble.

Once she had gotten to the shrine, she had looked all over for Reimu, but hadn't been able to find her. After searching the entire grounds, even peering through the windows to see if Reimu just didn't hear her knocking, Utsuho was at a loss. Where could Reimu be?

Then she had an epiphany.

"This must be an incident!" she said out loud. "Reimu's gone missing, and I have to find her!"

She grinned. Her first incident! How exciting!

And if this was an incident, then she was allowed to break into Reimu's home. She was fairly sure this was how incident resolvers worked. That was what Reimu and Marisa did, anyway. But the only person inside was an old turtle who told her to get out and let him rest.

This was not the trouble, either.

The trouble happened when she was flying above the Forest of Magic and a couple of fairies swarmed her, seemingly insistent on getting in her way. When she tried to shoot at them, she misgauged the amount of power she needed, and ended up decimating a small area of forest. Well, the fairies were out of her way now!

Utsuho landed, resting her control rod on the ground. Her arm ached a little where the rod attached to it, but she was used to it. That always happened after she fired off a strong shot.

She accessed the damage. The whole place smelled like smoke, but nothing was on fire, which was good. She had, however, created a smoking crater surrounded by a circle of toppled-over trees. At least the area seemed uninhabited; it would be pretty bad if she destroyed someone's house.

"Excuse me," said a voice behind her. "What happened here?"

She turned around.

There stood a silver-haired girl dressed in a frilly, blue maid's uniform. She held several knives between her fingers, and looked about ready to throw them, which was a little worrying. Utsuho rubbed the back of her head. "Uhh…"

She tilted her head towards the wreckage. "Did you do this? Yes or no?"

"Yeah," Utsuho said, "but it was an accident! I was just tryin' to get those fairies out of the way, except I messed up, and…" She looked down. "That happened."

The girl looked her over, from her raven-black wings to the red eye centered in her chest, then sighed and let her arms fall. "Well, as long as you aren't trying to cause an incident. I should be collecting ingredients for red tea."

"I'm not tryin' to cause an incident, I'm tryin' to resolve one! I'm gonna be an incident resolver!"

The girl raised an eyebrow. "An… incident resolver, you say?"

Utsuho nodded and grinned. "Yeah! Like Reimu!"

"Reimu…" The girl sighed. "…isn't really an incident resolver. She's a shrine maiden, that's all. Resolving incidents isn't her job."

"Oh." Utsuho's expression fell, but only for a moment. "Well, I still want to be an incident resolver!"

A little belatedly, she realized she should probably introduce herself. "I'm Reiuji Utsuho," she said. "Who're you?"

She hesitated for a moment, then tucked her knives away and bowed. "Izayoi Sakuya. Pleased to meet you, Miss Reiuji. Would you be the same Reiuji Utsuho who recently obtained the power of nuclear fusion?"

Utsuho nodded and grinned. "Yep! That's me! You can call me Okuu, though."

"Reimu told me about you." Sakuya glanced at the still-smoking crater. "Are you sure it's safe for you to be out here?"

Utsuho decided to ignore the question and instead focused on the first thing the said. "Oh right! You know Reimu? Do you know where she is?"

Sakuya shook her head, both to Utsuho's disappointment and relief, because now she would get to go on an adventure to find her. "No, I haven't seen her in a few days. Why?"

"There's an incident," Utsuho said. "She's gone missing, and I'm going to go find her!"

It was hard to read the expression on Sakuya's face, but Utsuho had never been very good at reading expressions anyway. She opened her mouth, frowned, shook her head, and then said, "Well, have fun with that."

Utsuho grinned. "I will! Thanks, Miss Sakuya!"

Sakuya watched as the hell-raven spread her wings, flew up into the sky, and glided away until she was out of sight. Right when she was about to head off, she heard something that sounded suspiciously like another explosion. She hesitated for a moment, then decided to ignore it. She was done with dealing with incidents for a while now; she was focusing on caring for her mistress.

"Remilia might find this interesting," she said out loud as she walked away.

Reimu was going to have her hands full resolving this.

* * *

"I thought you said there weren't any signs of a struggle," Marisa said.

Yukari looked at the newly-made entrance to Reimu's shrine, and frowned. "This is new. I think Utsuho was here."

Marisa laughed, which Yukari found highly inappropriate. From what she could tell, Utsuho had not been satisfied with using the proper entryway, and had instead blown a hole through the wall. Yukari glanced inside, but apart from the rubble strewn about, the room was undamaged. Or, at least, not as damaged as it could be.

"I'm surprised Genji's not throwing a fit over this," she said.

"Nah," said Marisa. "Turtle dude doesn't really care what goes on as long as it doesn't disturb his sleep."

"And an explosion won't."

"Yeah, exactly!"

Yukari sighed and grabbed Marisa's arm. "Follow me."

"What, are we gapping?" Marisa said, letting Yukari lead her forward. "We're gapping, aren't we? Damn, I knew that the ride here was too good to be true –"

Marisa's chatter was cut short with a yelp when Yukari pulled her through a boundary. Marisa pulled her arm out of Yukari's grasp the moment they were through and adjusted her hat. "I hate gapping," she muttered. Yukari ignored her.

The gap set them behind the shrine proper, in front of an pond. A couple fairies flitted about, sparing the youkai-human duo only the slightest of glances, and the blooming trees gave the scene a peaceful quality. The falling petals coated the ground, and nearly covered the giant turtle sleeping in the middle of the pond in a layer of pink.

Genji himself was sleeping at the edge of the pond, where the sun warmed his shell. Though he was right by where Yukari and Marisa had appeared, he showed no signs of noticing them, and his eyes remained closed. Yukari took her parasol and tapped his head with it. "Genji," she said. "We need to talk."

Genji made no move to respond.

"Genji."

Nothing. Yukari gritted her teeth, and her ire only grew when she heard Marisa laugh again.

"You don't know anything about turtle dude, do you?" she said. "This is how you wake him up."

Marisa reached forward and yanked on his beard. The reaction was instantaneous.

"Who goes there!" Genji reared up, lifting his front legs out of the water and stomping them down on the ground. "Mima, if that's you –"

"Dude," Marisa said, "Mima hasn't been around for ages. It's me, Kirisame Marisa!"

She said her name with a bow, holding her hat on her head. Genji swiveled his neck around to look at her, and narrowed his eyes. "Kirisame," he said. "That's just as bad."

"Excuse me," Yukari said loudly. Genji glanced at her and went back to focusing on Marisa. Inside, Yukari fumed, but she kept her voice calm and collected when she called out again. "Genji, I have something important to discuss with you."

"Yeah," he said. "I've got a bone to pick with you, too. What are you doing bringing Mima's protege into my shrine?"

"Last time I checked, this was the Hakurei Shrine, not the Genji Shrine," Yukari said dryly. "No matter if you're here or not, there needs to be someone with Hakurei blood at the shrine, so the Hakurei barrier will stay stable, and you should have noticed the barrier failing by now!"

"And I haven't been Mima's protege for ages," Marisa said. Yukari glared at her.

Genji fell silent. Marisa and Yukari stepped back as he climbed out of the pond, his feet sinking into the mud. He turned his whole body to face Yukari, and stood there, water dripping off him. Then he spoke.

"Explain everything," he said.

* * *

"Hold on," said Genji. "Don't give me that look, I understand everything so far, but you've got something wrong. Reimu did come home last night."

"She did? But this was the first place I searched, and there was no sign of her spending the night here."

"That's the thing, she didn't stay." Genji shifted his weight around. "I came out to greet her, just like I always do once she comes back from taking care of whatever mess happened this time, and I didn't even get to have a nice chat with her before a visitor showed up! Reimu wasn't too worried, said that it was probably the Kagome fellow –"

"Who?"

"Kagome Yuki," Marisa said. "You know, the youkai who caused the incident. Just some snow spirit Cirno and her buddies managed to rile up. One of the easiest final stage bosses ever. So was it her?"

"Dunno," said Genji. "Reimu went out to meet them, and I went back to sleep some more. Don't know if she came back after that, but it sure sounds like she didn't."

Kagome Yuki, Yukari thought, mentally labeling her suspect number one. "So you didn't think to check on her? You just let her go out and meet some strange youkai alone?"

"I sure wish I hadn't!" Genji shook his head vigorously. "I could have stopped her from going… wherever she ended up going! If she ends up hurt or worse because of me, her mother is going to come back from the dead and kill me."

Yukari felt a pang of grief at the casual mention of the late shrine maiden. "Never mind that," she said quickly. "What's done is done. Right now, we need to find Reimu, or, failing that, somebody else with Hakurei blood."

She had expected Genji to make a fuss over finding a replacement for Reimu, but to her surprise, he nodded. "That's right," he said. "How long do we have?"

"Two days," Yukari said. "So we need to find someone fast. I'd suggest starting with the human village."

"Reimu's not gonna be there, though," Marisa said, crossing her arms. "She would've been found by now if she were."

"And why does Mima's protege care?" Genji muttered.

"Oh, gee, I don't know." Marisa frowned and put a hand to her chin, as if contemplating something of vast importance. She stared off into the distance, then shot Genji the stink-eye. "Maybe because she's my friend?"

"Genji, please shut up about Mima," Yukari said, exasperated. "I know you and her have a history, but not only did she change her ways, she's been gone for ages. If you ask me, I'd say she's finally moved on to the afterlife proper. Marisa hasn't even seen her since before the Scarlet Mansion incident."

Genji "hmphed," but didn't object, so Yukari turned her attention to Marisa.

"Marisa, I'd like to find Reimu as soon as possible, too," she said. "But we have two days before the barrier collapses, so our priority is finding somebody to sit at the shrine so we can search without worrying about the barrier collapsing."

"I guess." Marisa sighed. "Hey, what happens if the barrier collapses, anyway? Would it be the end of the world or…?"

"Not quite." It was Genji who spoke up, to Yukari's relief. Explaining everything over and over was giving her a headache. "What happens is everything from the outside world can get in, and everything here in Gensokyo can get out, and who knows if it could be fixed. There's a chance we'd lose our magic, too. It wouldn't happen all that fast, more like all the magic in the world would spread out so thin that it wouldn't do anything no more."

Genji snorted and shook his head. "Not the end of the world, but damn close."

"So let's move!" Yukari grabbed the shell-shocked Marisa by the arm and opened a gap in front of them. "Human village first. Genji, you wouldn't happen to know if there were any Hakurei descendants running around, would you?"

"Yakumo, I haven't been out of this pond since Reimu was a little girl. Nobody with Hakurei blood's come within half a mile, that's all I can tell you."

"Worth a shot. Come on!"

With that, she dragged Marisa through, with Genji following behind.


End file.
